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Surprised Stare Games will be at AireCon Thursday 9 March to Sunday 12 March!

To be a bit more precise, we don't have a full exhibitor stand, but rather a demo table that I (Alan Paull) will be manning. I will be at Demo Table 11, Demo & Playtest Zone, Hall B, which is close to the games library. I hope to see you there.

Prototype games I will be demo-ing:

3 Sanchos

Designer: David J Mortimer

Artwork: Klemens Franz

Players: 1-3

Duration: 30-45 minutes

Age: 12+

Languages: French and Spanish via 2 Tomatoes Games in Spain, German via Frosted Games in Germany, and English via SSG over here in the UK.

For publication via a Gamefound campaign later this year.

3 Sanchos is the latest in our Pocket Campaigns series of small box historically themed games. It is our most ambitious Pocket Campaigns game so far with a mass of components to fit into our standard sized box for the series. It includes a board, a pack of 27 cards, a Battle marker, 2 Action markers, and a Tie Break marker for the Solo game, but in addition, each of the up to 3 players gets 14 Troop counters, a King counter, 5 standard 6-sided dice, and 1 special dice marked with 0, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, plus a Score marker. Finally, there will be a special card for El Cid himself. It's a packed box :).

Sample card

It plays in a similar style to Cousins' War and The Ming Voyages, but with twists and twirls that you'd expect from one of Dave Mortimer's games. The game is played in rounds, each round driven by a card from the hand of a player who acts as the commander of the round. Each card has a single action for each Sancho on it, but the commander has the flexibility of using the Command Points on the card to take different actions. The card text referring to players other than the commander dictates what a Sancho must do, and sometimes represents the cunning of the commander luring an enemy into performing an action they would rather not take or failing to take an action at all, because they cannot carry it out!

We will be running a Gamefound campaign for 3 Sanchos later this year, and we have a Preview page with more details. Please nip over to Gamefound and click our Follow button to see how it develops over the coming weeks, and don't forget to drop in and try it out at Table 11 at AireCon.

Last Bug Standing in the Circle of Doom

Designer: Bez Shahriari

Artwork: Akha Hulzebos

Players: 2

Duration: 15-45 minutes

Age: 12+

Language: English

For publication later this year.

Last Bug Standing in the Circle of Doom is a game in which the Navigator directs the driver of the crew’s Vehicle through an alien landscape, whilst the Gunner shoots at Bug-Eyed Monsters (BEMs). If you plot the right course, make the right moves, and pick the right shots, you will have the Last Bug Standing in the Circle of Doom!

In the above artwork, you can see the Compass board, a couple of Landscape tiles with Bug-Eyed Monsters illustrated, 2 circular Mascot tiles (you choose your favourite BEM to save), plus the Vehicle, the Gunner, and the Navigator, and three sample cards. On your turn, you move the Navigator on the Compass Board. The square where the Navigator lands shows the direction the Vehicle moves in, and it's location determines how far round the Circle of Doom the Gunner will move. If the BEM tile on the Circle of Doom matches the BEM on the Vehicle's Landscape tile, the BEM tile is removed. You win by removing all BEM tile's of your opponent's chosen mascot.

Come along to Demo Table 11, Demo & Playtest Zone, Hall B to give it a try.